Freedom is not something that suddenly disappears one day. It is eroded gradually in an unobtrusive manner, and everything was lost when you noticed it.

Kiichi Miyazawa

 

 

The words of a person who once served as Prime Minister and Liberal Democratic Party president. He says that when he looks back on the days under wartime, he first remembers the pressure on freedom and criticism than the poverty. Making light of a slight modulation led to a total yield to the power authority. And he quotes a proverb that "the embankment collapses even from the hole of an ant" thinking that "the diabolical history" should not be repeated. From "New Pro-constitution Declaration."

 

October 24,  2018

from “Oriori no Kotoba” by Kiyokazu Washida, The Asahi Shimbun